WTHS art teacher and students recreate Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” in mosaic mural
The trained eye of an artist can envision a canvas for creation in even the most unlikely of places. In the case of Washington Township High School art teacher Lauren Cichoski and 10 of her students, the doorway to the school’s pottery and sculpture studio room, the area inside the room and around the doorway recently became that canvas on which to model a masterpiece. Cichoski took a few liberties with Vincent Van Gogh’s classic mural “Starry Night” to create a composition that would fit the entranceway, and senior Rachael Miller has taken on the challenge of painting the door. Miller and Cichoski also teamed to design a mosaic pattern on the wall inside the classroom and surrounding the door.
Student-artists, including seniors Angelina Amato, Jessica Bodner, Kaysi Calabrese, Alyssa Karetny, Marco Primavera, Daijah Sutton and Donavan Haslet, and juniors Katie Taylor and Samantha Mazza, then adorned the pattern with ceramic tile and will be grouting the area to complete a beautiful, finished mosaic.
“This project has always been on my list of things to do,” Cichoski said. “I thought it would enhance the studio room and also serve to demonstrate the enhancement from an introductory mosaic mural, that we previously created in the hallway, to an advanced placement-level mural like the ‘Starry Night’ one that we decided on…
I thought this project would be a real challenge for my advanced-level students to try to recreate the thick brush strokes in ceramic tiles…My students were very dedicated to completing this design, and we have plans for another of its kind for next year in a public space rather than a classroom.”
